131 and 304 Å Emission Variability Increases Hours Prior to Solar Flare Onset

Abstract Thermal changes in coronal loops are well studied, both in quiescent active regions and in flaring scenarios. However, relatively little attention has been paid to loop emission in the hours before the onset of a solar flare; here, we present the findings of a study of over 50 off-limb flares of Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite class C5.0 and above. We investigated the integrated emission variability for Solar Dynamics Observatory Atmospheric Imaging Assembly channels 131, 171, 193, and 304 Å for 6 hr before each flare and compared these quantities to the same time range and channels above active regions without proximal flaring. We find significantly increased emission variability in the 2–3 hr before flare onset, particularly for the 131 and 304 channels. This finding suggests a potential new flare prediction methodology. The emission trends between the channels are not consistently well correlated, suggesting a somewhat chaotic thermal environment within the coronal portion of the loops that disturbs the commonly observed heating and cooling cycles of quiescent active region loops. We present our approach and the resulting statistics and discuss the implications for heating sources in these preflaring active regions.